What Is UX Design and Why Is It Important for Your Business?
Published on 20 May 2023 in
A staggering 88 percent of online consumers won't return to a website after a poor user experience, highlighting the critical role of user experience (UX) design in web and digital product development. More than creating visually pleasing interfaces, UX design emphasizes functionality over aesthetics, steering every decision in product development. Effective UX design can save resources, boost efficiency, elevate brand value, and improve user satisfaction. Thus, understanding what UX is and why it is important is crucial for not only satisfying your users but also for realizing your business objectives.
In this article, we'll clarify what UX it is and then share six reasons why UX is important for your business.
What is UX design?
User experience (UX) design, or UX design, is a multifaceted design concept, encompassing a broad spectrum of disciplines, such as interaction design, information architecture, visual design, and usability, among others. But it’s more than just a mix of various design principles; it’s an integrated, holistic approach to ensuring a positive user experience.
Interaction design
Interaction design is about designing intuitive interfaces that facilitate seamless interaction between users and the product. It is about creating every element that a user might interact with while using a digital product or a service, including buttons, touchscreens, and even voice commands. The aim is to make these interactions straightforward and rewarding.
Information architecture
Information architecture, on the other hand, is the science of organizing and structuring information in a clear, understandable way. It facilitates users to find what they need without obstacles.
Visual design
Visual design plays a crucial role in creating the aesthetic appeal of a product. It involves everything from color schemes and typography to images, layouts, and graphics. The visual aspect of a product can significantly influence a user’s perception and overall experience.
Usability
Usability, as the term implies, focuses on the ease of use of a product. It’s about ensuring that a product or service is user-friendly, easy to navigate, and functional. Usability testing is often used to gauge how user-friendly a product is and to identify areas for improvement.
At its core, UX design is about creating products that provide valuable and unique experiences for users. It’s all about putting users at the center of everything. Every decision made, feature added, and interface designed is done with the end-user in mind. It’s not just about how the product looks; it’s about how it feels to the user, how easy it is to use, how intuitively it functions. It’s about creating a product that not only meets but exceeds user expectations.
Why is UX important for your business?
Now that you have a better understanding of what UX design is, let's explore why UX is important for your business. In this section of the article, we'll explain the benefits of UX design, which range from reducing risks and lowering costs to enhancing brand loyalty, improving productivity, and retaining users.
Here are six reasons why UX design is crucial for the success of your business:
Benefits of UX design for your business
1. A higher return on investment
Most businesses understand that the discovery stage of the project lifecycle is the blueprint on which products are built. This phase involves UX research that illuminates the business's problem statement, its objectives, and the needs of its users. By doing so, it significantly improves decision-making, design strategy, and the creation of effective solutions.
In essence, an upfront investment in UX design reduces the risk of failure, as products and business ideas are tested on stakeholders and real users from the outset. In fact, according to research by Forrester, a dollar invested in UX brings 100 dollars in return, emphasizing the compelling return on investment that UX design offers.
2. Improved efficiency and lower costs
The iterative process of testing and validating designs and ideas to ensure a good user experience is another crucial aspect of UX design. It saves time and money, ultimately leading to improved efficiency.
To illustrate, consider a product that isn’t user-focused and design-first. A business might spend up to a year developing this product before testing the finished version on real users. At this stage, you might realize that the product isn’t what your potential customers want, or even if it is, the poor UX causes people to quickly abandon it. This scenario necessitates a return to the drawing board, resulting in a wasted year and substantial financial loss while competitors gain market advantage.
However, understanding customer expectations before designing a product or service and then testing prototypes before full-scale production can significantly reduce this risk. This approach not only reduces the time to market but also ensures the delivery of solutions that meet customer expectations, thereby amplifying the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the product development process.
3. Higher conversions
The archetypical conversion rate is the number of users who make a purchase on a website. UX designers have developed a number of techniques to evaluate the target group to influence an increase in conversion rates. In-depth user analysis and research help them identify usability problems and reasons why users abandon the product. Knowing and resolving the product’s pain points helps increase conversion rates. The same study by Forrester also found that good UX could increase a website's conversion rate by as much as 200–400 percent.
4. Increased brand loyalty and customer satisfaction
Strong user experience is essential for businesses, as it builds trust and creates long-term relationships with target consumers. Brand loyalty goes hand-in-hand with establishing credibility and trust, which improve customer retention rates.
Customer satisfaction is enhanced through UX design principles that positively impact the company’s ROI. Satisfied customers become loyal customers, which leads to more sales.
5. Improved productivity
UX design aims to make accomplishing tasks as effortless as possible for users. In SaaS systems like Freshteam and Monday.com, this means providing predictable functionalities that allow users to work without friction.
For example, UX design prioritizes intuitive workflows that allow people to complete tasks in as few steps as necessary. Thus, users of software that has UX in its DNA can accomplish more than those who use legacy software.
6. Better user retention
User experience is crucial for getting users to use your application for a prolonged period of time. UX designers aim to create accessible designs that excite users, which is a key factor in retaining them.
As products satisfy users' needs, user retention increases. If users are legitimately excited about a product or service, or if the service is particularly beneficial, they will be more likely to suggest it to others.
How we can help
These reasons show why you should never underestimate the benefits of UX design for your company. Investing in UX architecture is a financial win, and the longterm gains include not only increased ROI but lower costs, higher retention of users, and better Google rankings. With a well-optimized UX design, you can stand out from the competition and gain more customer loyalty.
Morphosis has a team of UX design experts who are skills at both identifying user experience problems and crafting UX strategies. Contact our team of UX professionals to learn more about UX design and see how we can help your business grow!
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